THE Labour Party's decision to focus its £1.5 billion tax package on lower and middle-income earners will be non-negotiable in the discussions on the formation of a new government.
This was stated by the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, at the launch of the party's election manifesto yesterday. Any additional monies could be spent on adjustments in the tax rates "as circumstances arise", he said, implicitly referring to Fine Gael's plan to cut the top rate from 48 to 45 per cent. Meanwhile, the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, has attacked a Progressive Democrats plan for a major increase in old age pensions as a "panic reaction" to growing public awareness of the consequences of the party's other social welfare policies.
The PDs have committed themselves to a five-year plan which would increase the pension to £100 a week. But the party leader, Ms Mary Harney, combined her announcement in Cork yesterday with a sharp attack on welfare cheats.
She said the PDs in government would penalise dole recipients who refused reasonable offers of work or training. Social welfare law would be policed "vigorously", she added, to ensure that taxpayers did not "carry the can" for cheats.
She said economic growth meant there was enough money to pay an "economic dividend" to Ireland's pensioners.
Mr Spring, describing Labour's proposals as "a social democratic manifesto for a social democratic party", said it would oppose a further constitutional referendum on abortion. Giving an undertaking that Labour would legislate for the implications of the X case, he stated this would be a matter for discussion in the parliamentary party before Government negotiations.
Asserting that the Blood Transfusion Service Board made a lodgement in the McCole case without consulting "our lawyers", Mr Spring said "the McCole family should not have been threatened in the manner that they were by the solicitors for the BTSB: That should not have been done. We were not aware of it
"Quite frankly," he continued, "anything we can do to help the McCole family should be done."
Claiming that the Rainbow Coalition had a proven track record on cohesion and delivery and that the alternative government would be "fractious", the Labour leader outlined the broad terms of the party's tax plan.
This would include:
. increasing the personal tax allowances, over the lifetime of the Government, by 70 per cent to £5,000 a year for a single person and £10,000 a year for a married person. This proposal would cost £950 million.
. widening the standard rate tax band by 43 per cent, at a cost of more than £400 million. This would result in a £4,300 widening for single workers to £14,200; and an £8,600 widening for married workers to £28,400.
. raising the PRSI exemption limit from £80 a week to £130 a week.
The total cost of this package, according to Mr Spring, would be about £1,450 million. Any additional monies could be spent on adjustments in levies or rates as circumstances arose.
Because the party believed strongly that the need was for a tax system that benefitted lower and middle-income families, it was dedicating the great bulk of changes to the areas that benefitted such families - allowances, bands and exemptions.
Mr Spring also gave an undertaking that by the year 2002 no unmarried or single wage or salary earner below £20,000 a year would pay a higher rate of tax; no married wage or salary earner would pay a higher rate of tax below £39,200 a year; and no tax-payer, married or single, on average earnings would pay the higher rate of tax.
He promised a double month's payment of child benefits, in August and December, to assist mothers at times when children were going back to school and at Christmas.
Turning to constitutional change, Mr Spring said the party proposed to replace the out-dated and restricting references to women's work in the home with a provision more appropriate to today's needs; changing the age at which young people could stand for the Dail from 21 to 18 years; a referendum on Cabinet confidentiality; and, if legal examination establishes the necessity, the insertion a provision in the Constitution to guarantee that no person with a disability can be discriminated against, in the workplace or anywhere else.